MTD,
There in lies the problem.
A family owned business rather than a group of people running a business as a business.
I've experience first hand, a family run national company with 22 branches Australia wide for which l was a branch manager.
The owner was like a Hitlar and everybody frighten of the person and unable to grow the business from their angle and or from a combined thought process.
Why.......... cause he was a control freak, ruthless as f**k and an assole of a human being.
He was successful but an absolute barsteward to work for. I'm not say ing Gordon is like that but the 'family mentality' is always the same .................... Don't do it yourway, do it my way, regardless of whether it makes good business sense. That's the problem.
I really don't know, mate.
From someone on the outside looking in, it seems the Saints side of things rolled over.
More and more strength was given to the lllawarra component with Gordon coming on board and the privatisation captialised on it. If he is the major shareholder, one can only assume he has the say, especially if he has 'others' leaning his way.
To me, Johnston is strictly a faceplate for Gordon. l have nothing against Johnston with the exception he's a puppet for Gordon. Again, l foresee a gradual but major shift of moving everything to lllawarra.
The club will be sold off because its losing coin.
Jubilee Oval will be conviently passed in as a unsubstainable costs, relegating it to second and third tier games for the Saints juniors, local schools and alike ..............not up to nrl compliance for future games.
The writing has been on the wall for some time.
The privatisation allowed the club to action stage 1 of their grand plan.
Jubilee Oval granted a one year ground sponsership lease for almost zero dollars, based on the fact that there would be no games played there between mid April to August 2019.
The middle of the nrl season!
Talk about a real kick up the ass for local and longtime Dragons fans.
As l've said before, l was very happy for the merge of the two clubs to happen but over the past couple of years, its really starting to stink.
I don't trust them for the simple fact that commonsense is not prevailing.
It's a pretty fair assessment.
Tail wagging the dog and the moment in time when the St. George leaders decided to shack up with Illawarra, was the moment in time that our club was destroyed.
I would have preferred to battle it out like Souths did and emerge a stronger club under private ownership than what has transpired now.
Unfortunately, we did not have anyone like George Piggins to lead the way and stand up for the true St. George identity.
The promise of a super club has never materialized but instead, the Illawarra faction grabbed their chance for control with both hands.
Shame on the St. George decision makers who accepted the merger in the first place and shame on them for not standing firm in the board room.
Fancy merging the greatest club in Rugby League.
Just a cop out.
Have you ever wondered why after Wests/Balmain and us, there have never been any more mergers??
Simply because both have failed miserably.
What is far worse, and what Possm keeps on about, is the lack of accountability and the lack of democracy in the way the club is run.
The way the merger was set up was an abomination with no chance for the members to influence the direction or management of the club.
Deliberate and calculating in every way with very little consideration for the fans or the St. George's glorious tradition.
At a time when the club was in debt and there was an opportunity for an outside buyer to take over, the Board in charge manipulated the process with the blessing of the NRL, to ensure that WIN got a bargain and control in one fell swoop.
If it was an objective sale process whereby the best offer prevailed, we would have new owners today with probably a more focused agenda on performance and results.
As for Illawarra being our nursery and so on, it tends to overshadow and forget the contribution of the local juniors from the St. George District.
All those juniors would have flowed to St. George whether the merger had occurred or not.
The dagger in the heart has been the way the coaching and recruitment function has been literally tampered with for the majority of the JV's existence.
With some notable exceptions (David Waite was a standout for me and obviously Bennett) the position of head coach has been treated like a children's game with retired players all lining up to "have a go".
The cherry on top is McGregor and his coal fields CV who somehow emerged from being drop kicked by Bennett, to end up as our golden boy "career coach" and who has shown zero improvement during his 5 year tenure.
The team results are always portrayed as positive signs of good things to come but those good things never eventuate.
This year we didn't have the luxury of a big head start and the style of footy we are playing is one dimensional and not worth the price of admission.
Alas the long suffering fans!
McGregor and the Board are not finished with us yet.
More bad results - big scores racked up against us and a bottom 3 capitulation only to be told that St.George fans are "too demanding" and we are not being fair to McGregor.
It's the season we had to have with Widdop injured and JDB mucking up our ruck defence and injuries of course.
That explains away 2019 and justifies the premature extension of McGregor.
Honestly guys, it is an insult to our intelligence what is going on.
Sorry for the massive rant but regardless what the Illawarra die hards say, the merger has been an abject failure and St. George would have been far better off standing alone.
Rant over.
